Clinton campaign, DNC, FBI paid for Trump dossier

A new report ties Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to the same firm that funded the research for the infamous dossier that alleged a connection between the Kremlin and President Donald Trump.

Gehringer wrote that in March 2016, Fusion approached Perkins Coie to see if its clients would be interested in paying Fusion "to continue research regarding then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, research that Fusion GPS had conducted for one or more other clients during the Republican primary contest".

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Since the allegations were much mocked and never corroborated, the dossier has mostly dropped out of the conversation about Trump and his Russian acquaintances-except among Trump supporters for whom the incident "proved" all the suspicions about Trump, his campaign, and Russians were partisan smears.

The Russian dossier is back in the news.

House Democrats have said efforts to discredit Mr. Steele and the dossier are part of an effort to distract focus from the broader Russian Federation probe.

As for the DNC, well, it now has something to deal with that's a bit more pressing than the question of exactly how many former Clinton and Sanders supporters sit on various committees.

Marc E. Elias of Perkins Coie poses for a portrait in front of a projected map of the United States at the firm on April 11, 2016 in Washington.

The Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie A$7.2 million in 2015 and 2016, and the DNC contributed A$4.6 million.

Trump was speaking about Fusion GPS staffers declining to testify before a congressional hearing last Wednesday.

The revelation is likely to fuel complaints by Trump that the dossier, which the president has derided as "phony stuff", is a politically motivated collection of salacious claims.

Trump and Republicans are insisting the dossier is fake but several points of it have been verified as accurate.

"It is relevant who paid for the dossier".

Information included within the Trump dossier reportedly began making the rounds in Washington in the thick of the 2016 presidential campaign, just as the intelligence community began looking into potential connections between the Kremlin and Trump - connections Trump has consistently denied. The Washington Post first reported the arrangement. It does not appear any portion of the dossier has been officially disproven.

Still, the president and his supporters have seized on the new details about the DNC-Clinton role to push their view that the various Russian Federation investigations - from Capitol Hill to Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller - are based on a fraudulent, politically inspired hit job.

Last week, an attorney for Fusion GPS sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee that suggested it has no plans to cooperate with its investigation.

The dossier created a political firestorm in January when it was revealed that then-FBI Director James Comey had alerted Trump to the existence of allegations about him and Russian Federation.